Window shopping Aphrodite
Leblon’s premier rubber-wear
sandwich and photocopy shop
entranced by Croque Monsieur
done three ways
I could never have known

a Rio slum kid
sticky hare-lip              half cured
grubbed a not wet      not dry card
into my palm

‘TICKET TO MUSE’

fairylight cobwebbed walls
real linoleum floor
showcases, greets
male/female/other                    beauty
of the most delicate
steady hand                 kind

precision scalpels
silicone force feeds
leftovers bucket trauma
genesis gentlemans’ club

MUSE

run by the infamous drugs DJ’s
The Glitterball Eunuchs
Where was I?
Faringdon Road Swindon
muse searching                        in the rain
she gave double vision
half price

even though she was imaginary
even though I didn’t exist

                                                sat on the wall
smoothing shafts of expensive new railings
I saw her passing on a carnival float
bellowing Salsa
shaking soft stuff

wearing a turban made of Rolo’s
made me go cross-eyed
stab myself                  in the thigh
with a moral compass
made me hear the Glitterball Eunuchs
bassline, bassline, throb all the time,

CLAM UP, CALM DOWN
blared her too bright, too tight
T-shirt

Then I woke up

outside the Aphrodite
in the gutter
ripped leotard flapping
like week old sunburn
Glitterball Eunuch’s biker hat
clasped between my knees

Number 14
double decker
on its way to Rodbourne
stopped right by me
Corcovado reflected
in its hub caps
frantic hand hammering the top deck windows
wordless mouth pressed square against the glass

my muse was there

new T-shirt loudhailing

MAKE POEMS

NOT LOVE

she threw Bob Dylan cards down the stairs
one by one

‘There are no Glitterball Eunuchs’
‘Find your family, feed them Daddy’
Live, love, grow, strong’
‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’
‘Meet me in Rio’
‘Don’t bring rhymes’
‘There is no muse’